Steak and Ale was started in 1966, according to the back of the menu I read the other day, and it looks like they haven’t changed a thing since. Which is a good thing, mostly. I don’t eat here often, as I have never been one of those people that love steaks above all things. I had the Prime Rib and baked potato, and had the general feeling that I could have made them at home and they would have been just as good. Maybe that is my trouble with steaks in general, I want to go to a restaurant to have something that it is a bother to make at home, like an all you can eat Chinese Buffet.
Having said all that, the steak was good, but not great. The salad bar had a small, but very good selection of items. The service was good in that they were speedy in refilling my Dr Pepper, but the girl didn’t smile a lot. Of course, I have a job where smiling is all I do all day, so maybe she was just fine and it was all me.
Several years ago I was in Omaha, which is nice as it is right next to Council Bluff. Lots of river boat casinos there. One day we went to dinner at one of these floating gaming houses, I have no idea which one, and there was steak on the buffet. OMG that was the best steak I have ever eaten. I am sure that part of the reason it was so good, was that it was unexpected. I have never had a steak as good as that again.
The Steak and Ale I went to looks old. Not just the mock Tudor styling of the place, but the little plate they serve the bread on-which is damned good bread-looked like it had been used about ten thousand times to cut bread. Either the knives were dull or the steak was tough, as I had a time getting the blade through to the plate. The tables are wobbly and the drapes look like the originals from 1966. There were also these cute little water jugs made to look like old pewter jugs that had a lot of dints and dings in them. In short, the place could use a face lift, if not a complete remodel.
But everyone around me seemed to be having a grand time. I heard one person say they had never had a bad meal here and another sighed with satisfaction as he ate his steak. So it is an OK place, but it is not really my kind of place.
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